Trade negotiations were renewed, and abundant supplies were taken on board. We now learned that we were to proceed to the Okhotsk Sea. Some bowheads remained in these waters during the summer, while many passed out to seek the Arctic Ocean. It was rumored that the captain had had such good luck the first season in the Arctic that he believed it policy to change to another whaling ground. There may have been a bit of superstition in this, but the change proved a good one. Word was passed round that we were going to stand well to the westward and go to the right of the Hawaiian Islands, and this because the captain hoped to sight some whaler bound home, and intrust a letter to her. Day followed day and only one small whale was taken. Finally a speck was seen at the horizon in line of the course we were taking. As we drew nearer the boats could be seen at the davits, so we knew she was a whaler. Both vessels hove to, one of our boats was lowered, and the captain went in her to visit the stranger. On his return I was near the gangway and heard him say, “The _Hepworth_ of New Bedford, bound home.” “Did you tell them about the ambergris?” asked Lakeum. “No, that’s such a tender subject that I thought I’d spare them. But I learned something that was a great surprise. The captain said that they told him, not long ago, in Honolulu, that last November a man named Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States.” “Did you ask the captain who Lincoln was?” “Yes, but he said he didn’t know.” CHAPTER XIII WHOSE WHALE WAS IT? We arrived at the Okhotsk Sea in the early summer; and one has only to visit that inlet to learn how extensive it is. The weather was not so severe as that of the Arctic, and so far as we were concerned we found the whaling equally good. Our captain followed the method he had adopted in the Arctic of dropping a boat, sailing a long distance and dropping another, and then taking a course between them. The bowheads seemed a little more active than those in the Arctic, but, if once struck, there was nothing to fear except their terrible flukes. There was much conjecture as to some probable creature who would yield more oil than the Gay Header’s whale, and thus be the means of bestowing the watch on another. One whale, the largest in the Okhotsk, yielded one hundred and fifty-eight barrels and the Gay Header was safe. In the whaling days there were quarrels over whales, and a few lawsuits, too. Strange that these differences should arise at places thousands of miles distant from Massachusetts, and that the cases should be tried in the United States Court in that State. How could there be any quarrel or lawsuit over a whale lying dead on the surface of the ocean? And the question may be answered by asking another question, “Whose whale was it?” That is, the question was not always who killed the whale but who owned the whale after it was killed.